The Monster and The Abyss

"What are we going to do?", I wondered aloud, like a child.

Chopper was holding Sight who had collapsed, although he was still conscious.

"What d'ya think?", he said, while helping Sight sit against a rock.

I looked back at Deli and Lubbock. Nothing seemed to have changed with them. Grim was intently watching the Void. Lady was just a small figure now from where we were.

"How is she going to stop it anyway?", I asked, still in a sort of daze.

"Something that is opposite of a void...or perhaps a void bigger than this void. No, regardless of what it is, we won't know. She won't know either."

"Chopper-san, are you really not concerned at all?"

"What are ya saying, kid?", he chuckled, putting a half burnt cigarette between his lips, "How is that possible?"

He'd seated Sight and presently walked back to my side.

"I've been with her since the start. It's not possible for me to not be concerned. But she's been far weaker than she's ever been stronger. So I'm sure she knows her own limits better than you or me."

"What is that supposed to mean?", I asked.

"Look", he pointed towards her.

She was getting ready to take flight and go to the void in the sky.

"Won't she just get sucked in?!", I asked, perplexed.

"Sight!", Chopper looked back, "On her!"

Sight painstakingly raised his hand and deployed a bunch of barriers to cover Lady. In doing so, he winced and his arm dropped back at his side. I looked back in her direction and she had turned our way, realizing Sight's helping hand.

"It won't hold", Sight said, coughing.

He looked really weak.

"Nothing to be done about it", Chopper let out a puff of smoke.

Just then, Lady took off. Almost like she shot herself into the sky. I realized we might not be able to see her if she got took close to the void.

"Every void has a core", Chopper said, sounding very sure, "But it's impossible to see it. Ya shouldn't even try. Right...Grim?"

Grim chuckled, "It seems I haven't broken my habit of underestimating you."

"Cause yer an idiot", Chopper laughed.

Grim joined in and they laughed for a while in this weird way, taking a short pause and glaring at each other through the corner of their eyes.

"Chopper-san, what did you mean when you said she's been weaker more than she's stronger?"

"Ya see, kid", he sighed, "Lady wasn't born with any ability."

"Eh?", I was taken aback.

It's true that it wasn't rare for folks to have no ability or particular magical affinity. There were those that didn't have a magic receptor at all. But most of those people were vagrants, or some tribes, but in general, very insignificant people. In a world that was so obsessed with hierarchy and proving its mantle, those who didn't have any ability never made it to even the first step of the ladder.

I was one such case, but my case was different. My family wasn't low on magic, I simply was a defect. But I was lucky to have my father who didn't care about things like that.

"She's...like me, then?", I asked, still in shock.

"Huh? Well...", he paused, "Not quite, I say. But she got that 5% when she was still pretty much a kid. Of course, it wasn't 5% right off the bat."

Lady was gone. The void was still getting closer but she had disappeared into it.

"We should...", Deli got up and walked towards us. She looked like she'd drop any second.

"We should do something about Lubbock...", she said in a broken voice.

"He'll be alright, Deli. Settle down", Chopper answered, uninterestedly.

"No...nothing will be alright", Deli said, as she plopped down beside Sight.

We waited in patience, as the void grew closer. With every second, my heart dropped a little. Lady must have gotten sucked in and died. There was no other explanation.

Its true that she always chose what wasn't an option. She wanted to live now when there was nothing but death. But in choosing the opposite, she made the whole universe work against her too. When she wanted to die, the universe didn't grant her that luxury. But now that she was looking forward to living, would the universe bring down the final judgement on her?

"Ain't no way that hag's dead", Chopper said, noticing the pensive expression on my face.

Just as he said so, the sky exploded.

At least, that's what it looked like. It turned to a deep crimson. The void exploded and covered the whole sky.

Chopper laughed.

When the blade of wind had blew past us, we were able to see the void much clearly. And we were able to see Lady.

"So it comes to brute strength after all!", Chopper exclaimed, with a huge grin on his face.

Grim wore a softer smile and he shrugged when Lady came into view.

Lady was there but she was burning away. The core of the void, must have been drawing her in. But she was pushing against it. How she was able to touch the void, I don't know. No one knew.

But she was pushing against it mid-air.

I don't know what kind of success Chopper was looking at that made him so excited but it wasn't much different from seeing a moon fall to the ground while one person went up and decided to propel it back.

It was hopeless.

"Chopper-san...what is she even doing? She can't push that thing back, can she?"

"Now now, what did I tell ya? When she reaches the core, she can end things in an instant", his eyes were fixated on the void, "But are ya really sure she's pushing it away?"

"What?"

Pushing it? Or was she pulling it in. To be fair, I couldn't tell.

Whichever way it was, didn't matter in the end. She was burning herself away. And soon it was visible to us all. Chopper's grin disappeared somewhere. He was the first one to realize that what we were hearing, wasn't her yelling as she struggled to put that thing back in its place, she was screaming in agony.

It covered the whole sky above us.

"Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you."

I remembered. But I saw a monster fight an abyss. And I saw an abyss swallow another. All the while, it was clear to me that the monster and the abyss had been one and the same. The one gazing is the abyss itself. And thus the abyss falls into itself.